Dim, damp, and suffocatingly moldy.
That was Lynn’s first impression of this world after transmigrating.
What accompanied it was a series of teeth-aching scratching sounds coming from outside the door.
They sounded exactly like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard—except someone had apparently added a damn sound-amplification effect.
Bang!
The wooden door was slammed violently by some enormous creature, sending dust fluttering from the ceiling.
Through the dim moonlight, Lynn could vaguely make out a huge, dark silhouette standing outside the door.
It was conservatively over three meters tall, and it exuded a stench reminiscent of fermented herring mixed with a dry latrine that had been left to ferment for three months.
Even worse, Lynn couldn’t even cover his nose.
Because he had transmigrated into a stone statue.
To be precise, he had become a dilapidated deity statue covered in spider webs, with a massive crack running across its forehead.
A blood-red, translucent panel was flashing wildly in front of him, looking disturbingly similar to a life-threatening alarm:
[Warning!
Faith value is about to reach zero!]
[Current Status: Divine Status Is in Extreme Danger!]
[Divine Status Collapse Countdown: 29 minutes and 50 seconds…
29 minutes and 49 seconds…]
Ten thousand alpacas stampeded through Lynn’s heart.
When other people transmigrated, they either started with a broken-engagement scenario while shouting something like, “Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river!”
Or they became rich young masters who immediately drove supercars around picking up girls.
But when it was his turn…
Good grief!
He had transmigrated into a wild, unknown deity in some godforsaken corner of the world, and in half an hour, his soul was going to scatter without even leaving behind a speck of dust!
Bang!
Bang!
The pounding outside became increasingly frantic.
A crack had already appeared in the middle of the flimsy wooden door.
A thick arm covered in yellowish-green pus suddenly forced its way through the gap, blindly groping around inside.
Right at that moment, a faint sob came from beneath the statue.
Lynn desperately tried to move his nonexistent eyes downward.
There, he saw a girl kneeling on a cattail mat.
She looked no more than fourteen or fifteen years old and was so thin that she resembled a matchstick that had somehow gained consciousness.
She tightly clutched a rusted crucifix, her face covered in tears and snot as she desperately prayed toward Lynn’s statue.
“Great Lord of Ashes…
Please bestow divine punishment and drive away the filth outside…”
“Sivier doesn’t want to be eaten…
Sob…
sob…”
Seeing the little girl repeatedly bang her forehead against the floor until it bled, Lynn felt a wave of despair as well.
Stop worshipping me, little sister!
Haven’t you heard that you shouldn’t randomly worship wild deities by the roadside?
Even if you kowtow until your head splits open, I can’t conjure a Gatling gun to save you!
This lousy statue is shedding stone chips faster than dandruff.
I can barely protect myself!
The monster outside seemed to have caught the scent of living humans.
It suddenly released an inhuman, shrill roar.
ROOOAAAR!
The entire church trembled.
Dust and dirt rained from the ceiling.
“It’s over.
I’m going to die right here.”
Lynn had already resigned himself to his fate.
Just as the monster was about to smash through the heavy wooden door, a crisp sound suddenly rang out deep within his mind.
Ding!
Immediately afterward, a mechanical voice devoid of emotion drowned out the monster’s roar.
[Host detected to be on the verge of destruction.
The Fourth Calamity System has been forcibly bound!]
[Scanning current plane coordinates…
Scan complete.]
[Constructing cross-plane soul-bridging channel…]
[Target Location: Blue Star.]
Lynn’s numb consciousness instantly jolted awake.
System?
The cheat has finally arrived!
[The host can disguise the current real world as a 100% holographic virtual reality game and issue closed-beta qualifications to Earth players through the system.]
[The slaughter, construction, and even emotional fluctuations of players after their descent will all be converted into your Faith Value.]
[Prompt: The host’s remaining Faith Value is currently sufficient to create only five of the most basic mortal bodies.]
[Please immediately edit the game advertisement link and deploy it across the Blue Star network!]
After hearing the system’s explanation, Lynn understood everything in an instant.
This was asking him to recruit free labor!
He needed to trick those notorious Fourth Calamity players from Blue Star—people who would probably slap even a passing dog twice if given the chance—into coming here and working for him for free.
Do it!
This is my only chance to survive!
At this moment, the wooden door was already on the verge of collapse.
The Aberrant Butcher’s enormous mouth, stretched horizontally across its face, was already pressed against the gap.
Drool dripped from its mouth as it stared hungrily at the little nun inside.
“System, generate a game link for me immediately!”
Lynn gritted his teeth.
“Name it…
Awakening of the Ancient Gods!”
“There’s no time for a major publicity campaign.
Keep it short and push it everywhere!
Gaming forums, Tieba, social groups—spam it all!”
…
Meanwhile.
On Blue Star, it was exactly 11:30 PM.
The virtual reality technology of this era was already highly advanced.
Almost every household possessed either a VR helmet or an affordable gaming pod.
Technology had advanced tremendously.
Unfortunately, game developers hadn’t.
The gaming industry was still dominated by the classic trinity:
Reskinned games.
Gacha.
And 648!
Players across the world had suffered long enough from pay-to-win online games designed to squeeze every last coin out of them.
Inside a certain university dormitory…
Sophomore student Lu Ziye was lying listlessly on his bed, wearing a VR helmet as he aimlessly scrolled through posts in the “New Game Spam Area” of a major gaming forum.
He was a hardcore gaming enthusiast.
His online username was:
[Passing Pure Love God of War]
At the moment, he was filled with resentment.
He had just tried an online game advertised as an “epic, cross-era virtual gaming masterpiece.”
In reality, it ran so poorly that every movement looked like a PowerPoint presentation.
“What kind of garbage is this?”
“The hit feedback feels like I’m chopping cotton, and they still dare to call this a cross-era game?”
“First cross over Bear’s Fast Run!”
Lu Ziye cursed under his breath as he prepared to leave the section.
Suddenly, the page refreshed violently.
An extremely abrupt post was pushed straight to the top of the homepage.
Its title was ridiculously arrogant:
[Awakening of the Ancient Gods—a Cross-Era 100% Realistic VR Immersive Online Game!]
[First Test Limited to 5 Players!
Cthulhu-Style Dark Hardcore Survival!
No Grinding, No Payment!
Get a Top-Tier Foreign Loli NPC at the Start!]
[No Queue Required!
Click to Play!]
Lu Ziye froze.
You’re calling yourself cross-era too?
Could there really be another master game developer?
Then he sneered.
“One hundred percent realistic?”
“These shady developers nowadays really dare to brag about anything.
Aren’t they afraid of violating advertising laws?”
With the mindset of exposing a scam, he clicked into the post.
But there wasn’t even a decent CG promotional video.
There was only a bare download link.
Lu Ziye glanced at the installation package size.
1 KB.
“Holy shit?”
“You’re not even pretending anymore?”
“This is definitely a Trojan virus, right?
Or some new variant of Panda Burning Incense?”
His roommate in the lower bunk was eating instant noodles.
He stretched his neck over to take a look, curled his lips, and said:
“Old Lu, don’t click it.
Be careful.
It might burn out your helmet’s motherboard.”
“And you still have dozens of gigabytes of your precious study materials in there.”
“What is there to be afraid of?”
Lu Ziye’s rebellious streak immediately flared up.
“This helmet is junk I bought from the second-hand seafood market.
There’s practically nothing inside!”
“Today, I want to see what kind of tricks this hacker can pull on me!”
Anyway, he had nothing better to do in the middle of the night.
His life philosophy had always been simple:
If you’re going to die, die having fun.
Without hesitation, Lu Ziye clicked Download.
Then he selected:
[Run Immediately]
And it wasn’t just him.
With Blue Star’s enormous population, there were inevitably a few individuals with extremely adventurous mentalities who clicked on the mysterious 1 KB installation package.
…
Beep!
Almost the instant the program launched, Lu Ziye’s VR interface went completely black.
Immediately afterward, an indescribable sensation of weightlessness swept over him.
It felt as though his entire body had been stuffed into a front-loading washing machine and thrown into the spin cycle at maximum speed.
“Holy shit!
I really got infected with a virus—”
Before Lu Ziye could even finish his second curse…
His consciousness plunged completely into darkness.